Palestinian leaders on Wednesday called for international pressure on Israel and support for their unilateral moves toward statehood after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election win.

Netanyahu's surprise victory, after pledging in the final days of the campaign that there would be no Palestinian state as long as he was in power, left Palestinians grim about prospects for a negotiated solution to a decades-old conflict.

"It is clear Israel has voted for burying the peace process, against the two-state choice and for the continuation of occupation and settlement," Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator in talks with Israel that collapsed in April, told Voice of Palestine radio.